


Outcasts

by inkycompass



Category: Final Fantasy II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21887866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkycompass/pseuds/inkycompass
Summary: The day Leila became a pirate captain.
Kudos: 2





	Outcasts

Leila coughed around the smoke that burned her throat as she grasped one of the few ropes still intact to haul herself up. The captain lay dead at her feet, limbs sprawled at crazy angles. The first mate's expression was frozen in wide-eyed shock. Leila didn't blame him. She'd be shocked if her head was that far away from the rest of her.

They didn't have a thing to worry about anymore. No such luck for herself. All this smoke--"Amar! Where's that damn fire? Use that fancy magic o' yours and freeze it out!" The man she named sat up, blinking away confusion. Leila stomped over and hauled him upright, hoping she wasn't pulling open any wounds. "C'mon, man, ye don't want ter burn _and_ drown t'death in the same day, do yer?!" She pushed him towards the orange flickering at the prow and turned to the next crisis. "Mera! Darr! Help me clear away this riggin' so we can actually sail this bucket somewheres!" She pried a scimitar from the hand of a former crewmate; it had been no use against the Imperials but it was still sharp and had enough shine to catch the sun as she waved it over her head. "Right. Sing out if yer still alive!"

She gripped the railing with one hand as the other survivors added their voices. Besides Darr, Amar, and Mera, there were just four more--eight sailors left from a crew of thirty. Not the cooper nor the sailmaker nor the sawbones among them. The Empire hadn't been random in its attack on their little ship. The only reason Leila was still alive herself had to be that they didn't expect a woman to be quartermaster.

Her crew was damn lucky for that.

They chopped away the wreckage that netted the deck and dragged alongside, freeing the cog from its own entangled entrails. Leila licked her dry lips and looked at the scuttlebutt. One of the Imperial marines had smashed it with an axe. Sending Mera down to check the water casks yielded the answer Leila feared: holed, split, washed into the bilges. The food was much the same, either stomped into the bloodstained deck or thrown over the side. The Imperials hadn't missed a trick. They'd cut the _Flying Ray's_ tendons and left her to bleed to death on the open sea.

There was enough of a line remaining to haul up the distress flag. It flapped desperately in the wind as Leila drove the crew, shouldering wreckage and piecing the dead back together so they could be decently given to the sea. Darr nudged Leila. His arm, crusty with dried blood, pointed. "Look at that!"

It was another trading cog, one Leila recognized. Hope bloomed in her heart and she grabbed the bent speaking-trumpet as she ran to the railing, ready to hail them. But the cog's sails shivered. Just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was vanishing. Leila's jaw dropped in disbelief. There was no mistaking it. They were turning on their heel and running from the _Ray._

"What in the devil are they doing?!" Darr gasped. The others, gathered with him, added their dismay to the chorus. Leila's hand curled into a fist. 

"Why are all of yer gawping like lubbers? We'll not save ourselves by hangin' over the rails like this!" She grabbed Amar as he stumbled back from the forecastle, red-eyed and slightly scorched. "Any magic left in ye?" He nodded reluctantly. "We've no drinking water. Make some more ice."

"You know the magic don't work like that--"

"'Twill fool our bodies into still going, won't it? Unless you'd rather shrivel to parchment out here."

And so, wetting their throats on the ephemeral ice, the survivors of the _Ray_ lashed their wounded ship together just enough to catch a breeze in the mainsail. The imperials had pitched all their navigational gear over the side, maps and compass and sextant. But it had taken the whole day to pull the ship into a state where it could limp along. As the light of the merciless sun dimmed into soft darkness, the night sky unrolled its own map for Leila to use. The wheel bucked and shuddered like a wounded animal, but Leila had steered the _Ray_ true for years. She didn't make the mistake of trying to fight it into compliance. With a gentle hand, she followed its lead and guided it forward.

They limped into Paloom five days later, parched, weary, and famished. One thing the Imperials had left, unaccountably, was money from their last run of cargo to Deist. The Empire must have thought that they would die long before they'd be able to use it, else they'd have been given orders not to leave a penny. The cargo they'd been carrying had all been tossed or smashed, not a sliver of it worth selling. But they could at least buy repairs for the ship and themselves rest at the inn. Leila went ashore herself. She hardly felt fit for it, but she was fitter than the others, at least. And as quartermaster, she had goodwill with the townsfolk and savvy to wield it to her crew's advantage. So she thought when she entered the inn. 

The owner gasped and stepped back from the counter, and well she might. Blood, sweat, and smoke; Leila didn't even notice the stink she carried anymore, but she knew she made a horrific sight. Yet the shock on innkeeper's face narrowed into something unwelcome as Leila related their tale.

"You were attacked by the Empire?"

"They left us in a dreadful way. Cut us up an' left us to die on the seas," said Leila, trying to angle for sympathy and wondering why she had to try in the face of the obvious. Something strange was at work behind the innkeeper's eyes, something that Leila did not much like.

"And you were on your way back from Deist?"

"Aye, that's so."

The innkeeper twisted her hands in her apron. "You must not have heard the news from there. The Empire wiped out the Dragoons. Slaughtered them to a man."

"What?" Leila gasped. "That's impossible! I was born in Deist, there's no way the Imperials could put a scratch on 'em! They've not the numbers nor the strength for it!"

"They didn't need either," put in a traveler. "Only poison."

"Poison." Leila stared past him. The Dragoons of Deist, brought down by something so low? She almost fired back; it couldn't be believed, but for what the Imperials had done to her own ship. If they were capable of such an act, they would do it. After all, how much force did it take for a man to drop poison down a well? "Those blaggards! They'll not get away with such treachery!"

"And who's to stop them?" said the traveler derisively. "You? With that burnt-out hulk tied up out there?"

"I won't have this kind of talk in here!" 

Leila turned back to the innkeeper. The woman's face was flushed with anger, but her eyes darted around, doubtlessly searching for unfriendly ears. She drew a breath, clearly weighing her words, and went on. "This is a neutral town. We're just trying to live our lives here, no more and no less." Her eyes darted up, glaring at Leila, not the traveler. "Anyone stirring up trouble isn't welcome under my roof."

Leila stepped closer to the counter and leaned forward. The innkeeper looked away and tried to occupy her hands with some small task, avoiding her gaze. "If ye thinks that will protect ye and yer neighbors, mistress. But meself and me crew are trying t' survive, same as you."

"I can't--If they found out we helped a ship from Deist--"

Leila waited a moment. The innkeeper stayed still as a statue, unhappily staring at the counter. At least she didn't try to apologize. Leila straightened up. If this was how it was to be, they would have to accept whatever repairs had been effected before sundown. It'd not be safe to stay the night in this port. Maybe there were others here more willing, but she had known this inn and its keeper for years. Leila couldn't afford to risk learning who would help them and who would finish what the Empire had started. She turned on her heel.

* * *

"They threw us out?" Mera gasped when Leila explained what had happened. "They can't! We've been trading here for years!"

"After what I told ye about Deist?" Leila shook her head. "They're scared stiff. They don't want to be next over the side."

"It won't help!" said another of the crew. "Do they really think the Empire's going to leave them be? They're fools!"

"I don't know and it don't matter." Leila glared at the town. She could pick out figures she recognized, scurrying along on their errands as though they could hear the tramp of Imperial boots right behind them. No, they didn't think it would help, she was sure of that. All they could do was delay the inevitable. Conquest or rebellion, there were no in-betweens. But the _Flying Ray_ was a danger they could identify. It was one they had power over. They would do whatever they could to rid themselves of it. "We'll repair what we can afford to and then we're off."

"Off." Mera stared at her. "Off where?"

Leila glared at the town again and gripped the wheel. "We'll not be beggars in the wilderness. They won't help us? Fine, they don't 'ave to. We'll help ourselves."


End file.
